Came across an interesting story by the AP a couple of weeks ago: East L.A. — birthplace of the lowrider, Los Lobos and Oscar de la Hoya — is to Mexican-Americans what Harlem is to the black community. Now it wants to become its own city. Commonly mistaken for a part of Los Angeles, East L.A. is actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, with more than 130,000 people — 96 percent of them Latino — packed into 7.4 square miles. [CLIP] While outsiders often see the area as gang-plagued and poverty-ridden, East L.A. possesses cultural and political symbolism for Mexican-Americans. I live in Silver Lake, right next to…

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Inside Silver Lake!! The Silver Lake monster reported in the fifties(?) turned out to be…not so much, so let’s hope this works out as smoothly. As I investigated the composition of the Silver Lake walkway, on the east side of Silver Lake (finding out in the process that instead of soft dirt, it’s dangerous granite) I had several conversations with the LA Bureau of Engineering. Eventually this led to an invitation from the BOE project manager, Michael Haddadin,  to examine the new walkway going in Silver Lake right now. (And this is their opportunity to make the new walkway healthy, instead of rock.) This is as close as…

I’ve been running around the Silver Lake walkway for almost a year and a half, since the May ’07 fire in Griffith Park. This summer I got shin splints so bad I couldn’t even think, and the pain would stay for days. I took aspirin, and tried to massage my legs, or stretch them, but nothing helped. I finally realized I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  I was afraid maybe I had broken something! I dug deep in my pockets and went to a store that sells only running shoes. No more Mervyns!   ($100 is the low end of most good running shoes, but that was all I was willing…

The LAFD is at it again, and Silver Lake is there to help. No, I don’t have the LAFD blog bookmarked, but I live on the crest of the hill, so the water helicopters fly right over on their way to the lake, uncomfortably close, and so that’s a heads up to me. (Fortunately they’re good fliers, and don’t clip our building.) Helicopter lowers stinger into Silver Lake to pick up water. This is the third day this month that the LAFD has used Silver Lake as a source of water for several wildfires, all near the zoo. I’ve lost count at the number of helicopter water pick ups today,…